


Sofa Hound

by ApollonDeuxMille



Series: From Here To There [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Deconstruction, Eventual Sexual Exploration, Friendship Development, Gen, University
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 10:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1465783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApollonDeuxMille/pseuds/ApollonDeuxMille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"As ever, Enjolras wears a vivid jacket, today a well-favoured red effort, and an unreasonably up-to-date cut of black jeans, but unusually his face is grey and the dark circles around his eyes look like bruises."</p><p>Grantaire accepts Enjolras as his guest for a week. They've not long since put their differences aside, and everyday brings them something new to consider in each other. Grantaire, the stifled art student struggling to bloom in the darkness, and Enjolras, a slave to routine, unraveling during a long summer of solitude.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Arrival

 Grantaire scowls and answers his phone irritably. Enjolras never rings him.

'Yeah?'

There's a scraping sound on the other end and a background clanking. Somewhere Enjolras speaks, as if he's having a bit of a problem holding his phone close enough to his face. Grantaire can tell he's annoyed.

'...Enjolras?'

'Grantaire?'

Enjolras talks clearly into the phone now, evidently having desisted in whatever noisy activity he'd been occupied with. He fumbles with his explanation of the necessity for the phone call. Grantaire finds his brow puckering now and then in frustration at the ramblings. He's heard Enjolras talk on the phone before and oddly his oratory skills translate very poorly when he has to speak to a disembodied voice. Enjolras finishes his needlessly long-winded account of what's going on, but Grantaire hasn't really been listening.

'What.'

'Can I stay at yours?'

_'What?'_

'What do you mean what? I just told you.'

The wilderness of Grantaire's mind is obscured by puzzlement. He takes the phone away from the side of his head to look at the time. It's almost midnight, and Grantaire has long since committed to his pillows and bedsheets after plentiful remedies for the long working day he'd endured; wine, television, music and more wine. Midnight is a rather silly hour to still be awake, he thinks, but Enjolras babbles again at the other end of the phone, his pitch rising with irritation, so Grantaire tries to decipher what he can hear.

'Your house is doing a thing?' he manages.

'Yeah. I swear I just said all this. Are you drunk?'

Drunk isn't quite what Grantaire would call himself, since he could still speak and sit upright, still sigh discreetly and walk steadily to the kitchen. Tomorrow will be his first day off in six days so he supposes can forgive being woken up, forgive being condemned to now lie in his bed until four o' clock in the morning trying to go back to sleep. He tries not to grind his teeth angrily on the lip of his glass of water. He almost slams the glass down when he's finished it.

'Why can't you stay in Joly or Combeferre's room?'

'They're replastering and repainting the whole house. I have to not be here, basically.'

Grantaire yawns and fills the glass again. 'Well, Marius and Courfeyrac have gone back home for the summer too, and they've locked their rooms. Will the sofa be okay?'

His eyes widen, realising what he's said. He breaths into his drink, quite forgetting he's holding it up to his face. Did he just say it was okay for Enjolras to crash on his sofa for a week? There is full throttle blithering on the other end of the phone, and Grantaire tunes himself back in. Enjolras wants to bring all his text books, he says, and his favourite jackets because the decorators will get paint on everything, he bets, which boots should he bring? he wonders. He is oblivious to the unresponsiveness of Grantaire.

'Do you have spare bedding or do I have to bring some? I'd rather bring mine in case the decorators get plaster and paint all over it.'

'Yeah.'

'Yeah you have some or yeah I should bring some?'

Grantaire clenches his teeth. 'Yes, I have spare but you can bring yours if you want.'

Enjolras doesn't reply immediately, he can hear the tension in Grantaire's voice. 'Is this late for you?' Enjolras is doing that annoying thing again, the thing that Grantaire has struggled with since they managed to reconcile after almost two years of hatred. Enjolras always has to know the answers to everything he feels curious about, but the way he makes his innocent enquiries with such an accusing tone always makes Grantaire's skin prickle.

'Yes. It is late for me. I go to bed before midnight almost always.'

A pause.

'Huh. I always though you were a complete night owl.' Then Enjolras launches into another long-winded ramble about how he has to be out of his place by tomorrow, how he thinks he'll just get a taxi over because he can't be bothered to carry everything and for some reason, a strangely detailed account of his daily eating habits. Grantaire is considering holding the phone away from his ear until Enjolras finishes talking, then he hears something that actually catches his attention.

'Say again?'

'Do you want me to bring your hat back?'

'Uh, yeah okay.' Grantaire doesn't remember lending a hat to Enjolras and wonders which one it was. Definitely not his favourite, he wore that one yesterday.

'Okay well I'm gonna go now. Bye.'

Ever so typically of Enjolras, his telephone sign off is as awful as everything else spoken down the phone. Grantaire blinks, sighs, shakes his head and then goes to his bed and tries his hardest to get back to sleep.

* * *

 

The waking hour the following day is much later than Grantaire would usually prefer. Though not a lover of ludicrously early mornings, Grantaire will try to awaken himself well in advance of the time he needs to be out of his bed, simply to indulge in not having to get up immediately. He'll wallow in the warmth of his covers and muse on any odd dreams from the night, doze and daydream and give in to his morning demands. Some mornings his luxuriations last only half an hour, others almost two hours. But this morning there's the doorbell, then his phone, the doorbell again and chime after chime of incoming text message alerts.

'It's half fucking seven in the morning!' he rages at his ceiling as he kicks off his duvet. If Enjolras heard Grantaire through the open window, the answering hammering of the front door seems quite petulant. Grantaire stomps down the stairs and tears the front door open, recoiling from the morning sun and smell of traffic from his road. As ever, Enjolras wears a vivid jacket, today a well-favoured red effort, and an unreasonably up-to-date cut of black jeans, but unusually his face is grey and the dark circles around his eyes look like bruises. Grantaire watches a taxi pull away, and stares at all the clobber Enjolras has lugged with him. A burlap tote bag full of text books, two pillows and a duvet in tie-top bin sacks, his laptop bag, a satchel full of who knows what and a rucksack presumably filled with changes of clothes.

'You look like shit.'

Enjolras scowls and huffs. 'The decorators turned up a lot earlier than they were supposed to. It pissed me off.'

Grantaire chuckles, leaving the threshold to let Enjolras make his way inside. He doesn't offer to help carry anything.

'What the fuck kind of decorators turn up that early?' Grantaire goes to the kitchen and sets the kettle to boil some water for tea. Enjolras dumps his rucksack with the rest of his stuff at the edge of the living room, shuffling into the kitchen. He takes a little more notice of his surroundings than he usually does. He's been to Grantaire's house plenty of times, since it's also the home of Courfeyrac and Marius, but Grantaire has been living here for three weeks on his own by now. It's the summer between the second and third year of university and he has stayed to work. It's relatively tidy compared to usual, though Enjolras supposes that's because there is only one person, not three, to contribute to any accumulative mess. He watches Grantaire make a single cup of tea, leaning on the worktop, and thinks he could do with a cup of coffee.

'Oh - sorry!'

Enjolras looks up at him. 'What?'

'You want coffee, I should have asked you when I started making my drink.' He gets another mug and thinks nothing of rifling through Courfeyrac's cupboard for the expensive instant coffee. Enjolras is staring.

'You know you do that, right?' Grantaire is peering at him strangely now. 'Say what you're thinking out loud?'

Enjolras, in an echo of Grantaire from the previous night, is apparently too tired to process much, so he just shrugs, says he takes his coffee with no sugar and plenty of milk. Grantaire snorts and flicks his eyebrows. He doesn't think much of this abruptness. Enjolras is trying to act like he does with Courfeyrac and Combeferre, who are his closest friends, but Grantaire is Grantaire. He and Enjolras aren't really on the same page. Not even on the same planet, it sometimes seems.

They both have hot drinks now and go to the living room, where Grantaire flips on a lamp in the corner and switches on the telly. He skips over the morning news, expecting Enjolras to protest, but he's just slowly sipping his coffee and says he doesn't mind what they watch, and lands on some re-runs of an badly dated medical drama. It's just there for background noise anyway.

'I know.'

'You know what?'

'It's there for backgr- fucking hell, Enjolras, do you have any control over your speech?'

Enjolras glares over the rim of his mug. 'Am I saying my thoughts out loud again?'

Grantaire looks at him, aghast.

'Sorry. I do that when I'm tired.'

The next forty minutes or so continue like this once they've finished their drinks, Grantaire on one of the lumpy sofas, legs over the armrest, channel hopping, barking laughter at awful comedies, tutting with distaste at reality shows, and Enjolras on the other lumpy sofa, sunk in the middle with his arms around a cushion, not really watching the telly, not really doing anything at all. It occurs to Grantaire that he doesn't know if this is normal behaviour for Enjolras or not. Whenever Courfeyrac or Marius have him round, Grantaire would slink into his room, out of habit from the time when they had truly hated one another. He never came out until Enjolras had left, or moved to chatter or work in one of the other bedrooms.

He twists his head to look. He sees deeply shadowed eyes, heavily lidded, peering over the top of the cushion he's suffocating in his grip. He sees limp shoulders and somewhat greasy hair. Grantaire knows better than to ask if he's okay. Enjolras is always okay, apparently. If someone asks him when he obviously isn't doing very well, he puts up a Spartan defense, snapping and scowling until he's left alone again. Back when they hated each other, Grantaire had learned the right things to say and do around Enjolras from watching people like Combeferre and Courfeyrac, just so that he could know the wrong things to say and do. Heckling Enjolras had been his favourite thing all that time ago. Grantaire decides to try some side doors, thinking of something unrelated to talk about. 'Hey Enjolras,' he begins.

It takes Enjolras a moment to register that he's being spoken to. 'Hmm?'

'Courfeyrac and Combeferre are your besties, right?'

A frown. 'Yeah, pretty much.'

'How come you live with Combeferre and Joly, not Combeferre and Courfeyrac?'

Enjolras stares at him now. Not his usual, unkind, judgemental stare. He's quite departed today. 'Combeferre can cope with me. Courfeyrac is a good friend, but he can't always cope with me.'

The answer is so naked, it makes Grantaire shift to completely face Enjolras. 'And Joly can cope?'

'Joly is better at letting things go.'

The honesty astounds Grantaire. He thinks of Courfeyrac, grounded, kind Courfeyrac, all the times he took Grantaire's teasing too seriously, Marius's accusations of making him upset when he was in fact already upset about something else. How many days and bacon sandwiches it took to convince him that the discord troubling him wasn't really there. Then he thinks of Joly, good-natured enough not to rise to any needling, because he knows he can be tiring, and people can get awfully tired.

'True that...' he wavers to think of what else to ask this oddly complacent Enjolras. 'You knew Combeferre before uni, didn't you?'

'Yeah.'

Grantaire expects more, but it doesn't come. He risks further enquiry. 'How?'

'Same tertiary college. That's when we met, we had Classics together. Three times a week.'

This surprised Grantaire a little bit, because that would have only been about four or five years ago. Combeferre and Enjolras have an extraordinary alignment with each other, something Grantaire expected could only be carried by those kinds of people who had known each other since they were toddlers. Grantaire didn't have any friends like that.

'Hmm.' He's running out of things to ask without stepping onto the forbidden subject of _are you okay Enjolras._ 'I don't have contact with anyone I went to college with.' A lame offer that attracts little more than an 'oh' in response. So he gives in.

'Enjolras, are you all right?'

There it is, dark grey eyes like a nasty rain cloud land on him. Grantaire can see the razor-blade Enjolras is standing on, if he tips one way he'll get defensive and frosty like he always does when someone asks him this question, if he tips the other way, possibly he'll continue his stream of astonishing honesty. They watch each other. Enjolras eventually sighs. He sags and his eyes go back to the telly. He's gone down one side of the razor-blade, and he doesn't look particularly furious, so Grantaire waits to hear what he has to say with attentiveness.

'I just...' Another heavy sigh, downcast eyes. 'I just don't do very well on my own.'

Grantaire scoffs. 'What do you mean?'

Enjolras prickles, uncomfortable. 'I mean. I don't know. I don't like being by myself.'

Recognising that he shouldn't push too hard, because he knows exactly how hard he can push Enjolras before he explodes, Grantaire looks back to the television, hopping onto a movie channel where they watch a spaghetti western. On the first break for adverts Enjolras shuffles to the toilet, and the second Grantaire gets up to make them both a cup of tea. Enjolras takes his tea the same way he takes his coffee. After the spaghetti western, Grantaire wants to make food and offers to make some for Enjolras, who refuses. Grantaire snaps at him and tells him again that he looks like shit and that he knows what a person looks like when they haven't eaten properly for a while. They bicker, but Enjolras has no where to escape to because it's not his house, so he gives in. Grantaire spends time in the kitchen, returns with two cheese and ham omelettes. Grantaire finishes his food quickly, but it takes Enjolras two whole episodes of a sitcom to finish his.

When the evidence of cooking has been cleaned and put away, Grantaire announces he is going to have a shower, and Enjolras replies that he wants to work on a summer research project he's been given for uni. As it's his day off and he didn't have time to pointlessly wallow in bed that morning, Grantaire luxuriates in the shower, spending time feeling the hot water cascade down his back, shampooing his hair several times with Marius's posh stuff, and relieving himself sexually, discreetly. He wraps a towel around his waist when he's done, shakes the excess water from his black curls and pads along the landing to his room. He stops by the bannister to shout down the stairs.

'Enjolras, you can have a shower if you want now. Use what you want in there, none of it's mine.'

He slips into his room, remembers to shut and lock the door because he's not alone in the house anymore, dries off and slips into some black jeans and a sage t-shirt. He puts socks on because the old carpet in the house makes his feet black and he thinks it's disgusting. Emerging from his room he hears that the bathroom is not occupied. He descends the stairs and in the living room he finds Enjolras on the sofa where he left him. He's curled on his side, because he's longer than the small sofa, still clutching the cushion, scowling even in his sleep. His bags are undisturbed from where he initially set them, obviously he had never even bothered to get his uni work out. Grantaire decides to do some investigating.

* * *

 

Several hours have gone by and Enjolras continues to slumber on the sofa, utterly dead to the world. He hasn't even shifted his position. Grantaire has his laptop open on his knees, he's logged into Facebook, and opens the chat window and looks for the person he wants to talk to. Combeferre's little green light is on.

> _**Grantaire:** hey_
> 
> _Sent 3:22pm_

 It takes Combeferre a while to see the message, but not long to reply, once he's realised someone wants to talk to him.

> _**Combeferre:** Hello R. How are you?_
> 
> _Sent 3:41pm_
> 
> _**Grantaire:** i'm good, enjoying the summer. you good?_
> 
> _Sent 3:43pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** Yeah me too :) Working the riverside pub again to save some cash._
> 
> _Sent 3:45pm_
> 
> _So what's up then._
> 
> _Sent 3:46pm_

 Grantaire wonders how to approach the issue, but decides not to pussyfoot. Combeferre is too perceptive for that.

> _**Grantaire:** enjolras is staying round mine for the week._
> 
> _Sent 3:51pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** Because they're doing up the walls in our house?_
> 
> _Sent 3:54pm_
> 
> _**Grantaire:** something like that._
> 
> _Sent 3:55pm_
> 
> _just wanted to ask how to look after him. like how often do i have to feed him. how many walks does he need a day. that sort of thing._
> 
> _Sent 3:58pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** Haha :)_
> 
> _Sent 3:59pm_
> 
> _He's not that difficult. Bit moody. He likes his space._
> 
> _Sent 4:00pm_

Grantaire cracks his knuckles, then his breath catches when he sees Enjolras stir. Even though he is innocuously clattering away on his laptop, just as he has the right to do in his own house, and even though Enjolras wouldn't be able to see what he's typing, he still feels paranoid that some kind of tantrum would ensue from his little investigation. Enjolras doesn't wake however, merely stretches an arm in his sleep.

> _**Grantaire:** he's being weird._
> 
> _Sent 4:06pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** Don't you always think he's being weird?_
> 
> _Sent 4:08pm_
> 
> _**Grantaire:** he looks like he died and then microwaved himself back to life_
> 
> _Sent 4:09pm_
> 
> _and he told me he doesn't like being alone_
> 
> _Sent 4:10pm_
> 
> _he told ME that_
> 
> _Sent 4:10pm_

 Grantaire watches the little chat window. It takes a while for Combeferre to begin typing his reply, he can see the little dot-dot-dot, which repeatedly disappears and reappears.

> _**Combeferre:** Enjolras is a slave to his routine. Joly and I are part of his routine I suppose. He got like this on Easter break._
> 
> _Sent 4:16pm_
> 
> _**Grantaire:** why?_
> 
> _Sent 4:17pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** Why what?_
> 
> _Sent 4:18pm_
> 
> _**Grantaire:** why is he a slave to routine? he can take care of himself can't he?_
> 
> _Sent 4:21pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** Yes he can. He believes he's very independent. And he is. But very easily distracted from day to day stuff. I guess he gets side tracked when no one else is there._
> 
> _Sent 4:24pm_
> 
> _He'll be fine, honest. If he's freaking you out just get on with your normal stuff. He'll sync up._
> 
> _Sent 4:25pm_
> 
> _Gotta go to work mate. Let me know how the week goes, okay? Chat soon X_
> 
> _Sent 4:25pm_
> 
> _**Grantaire:** okay thanks ferre. talk laters x_
> 
> _Sent 4:27pm_

Grantaire turns off his Facebook chat but doesn't log out, instead he scrolls mindlessly down the feed, pondering what Combeferre has told him. He re-reads their little conversation. _He got like this on Easter break._ Grantaire stayed for the Easter break earlier in the year, just as Enjolras had, but this was before they had made their reconciliation, so they'd not seen each other on the basis they were seeing each other now. He remembers glimpsing him in town a few times, awkwardly bumped into him in the supermarket once or twice. He pecks around in his mind for anything unusual about those encounters. And he remembers. Once during the Easter break, Grantaire had stayed up extremely late working through the night on an unstoppable wave of artistic inspiration until about 5 o' clock in the morning, then he'd stopped, realising how ravenous and accomplished he felt. He'd triumphantly slammed his inks and pencils and other things down, shuffled into shoes and a coat and walked the short way to the 24 hour supermarket.

He'd set about gathering ingredients for a fried breakfast, pleased to have a reason to reward himself, when on the aisle filled with juices and yoghurt and other chilled breakfast things he saw something he hadn't been anticipating. At the opposite end of the aisle, staring blindly at a baffling shelf full of about eight different kinds of orange juice, was Enjolras. He had a basket and was wearing pajama bottoms and a red hoodie and unlaced Doc Martens. At the time, he and Grantaire still vehemently hated each other, and both regularly went out of their ways to irritate and insult each other. Grantaire, feeling high from his artistic success, sneered and waltzed over, practically invincible.

'Hey, fuckface,' he'd spat. He hadn't really noticed then, but Grantaire recalls the way Enjolras had flinched and stared at him wildly. He sees in his minds eye the same grey face and bruise-like shadows around his eyes that are there today. He encourages more details to the surface, the fact that there was no shirt under the red hoodie, may not have been any socks on under the boots, possibly the pajama bottoms were inside out. He definitely remembers what Enjolras had in his basket because he'd used it to tease him.

'Bananas... olive oil... rice noodles. Enjolras, you strange animal, what weird things have you got planned for yourself?'

 Grantaire scrunches his face, a little embarrassed with himself, when he remembers how Enjolras had just stared at him, looked into his basket at the offending items, then looked up into his face again. He'd muttered a simple 'whatever', which when spoken had sounded like a venomous hiss through the screen of Grantaire's hatred, but in recollection was just an exhausted whisper.

Guiltily, Grantaire looks over at Enjolras and stares hard at him again trying to notice everything he can. He doesn't see much more than he's already observed. The thing that surprises him the most is just how tired he looks and how greasy his hair is. He imagines Enjolras staying awake all night, roaming his house, because his friends, the ones who can cope with him, aren't there to remind him with their existence that he's meant to have dinner and go to bed. They aren't there to make him feel mortified the he hasn't had a shower for a while. But surely he's been feeding himself? It took him a very long time just to eat that small omelette. Perhaps he doesn't want to eat.

It's then that Enjolras stirs awake. Many bones crack as he stretches himself and he yawns deeply. He startles when he catches Grantaire staring at him from the other sofa. Grantaire isn't sure how to approach this newly discovered animal, this Enjolras that begins to unravel without other people to remind him to be normal.

'You were asleep for a few hours. Feel better?'

Enjolras sighs, his head flopping back onto the sofa. He sort of nods.

'It's not dinner time, but I'm gonna cook soon.'

He gets up and goes to the recess-come-utility-area by the back door, where there is room for the washing machine and tumble dryer, a rack for dried, folded garments. He comes back with a bundle in his arms which he unceremoniously dumps on top of Enjolras. A couple of towels.

 'You can use these whilst you stay, they're clean,' Grantaire says. Nice and simple, not too direct. Enjolras would definitely fight in the name of Sparta if he was told to wash up because he was a bit greasy and musty. 'I'm gonna potter about a bit, see what I can cook for dinner. Food might be ready in say, three quarters of an hour? Watch some telly if you want.' He's being so diplomatic and off-handed, he's quite pleased with himself. One who can navigate the treacherous waters of extensive siblinghood can surely deal with Enjolras. As he wanders back into the kitchen, he lightly calls back over his shoulder, 'Don't worry about using up all the hot water by the way, or Marius's stuff. They're both on tap.'

That was the trick. Grantaire feels smug that he can perform it. He's watched this same gimmick played out so many times before at ABC meetings. Gentle showers of this and that from Combeferre, little I-don't-knows and what-do-you-thinks, which coax Enjolras down from his high horse to earnestly interject, because he is unknowingly arrogant enough to think that Combeferre, of all people, needs his contribution. Grantaire had always been entertained by how much more grown-up Combeferre was than everyone else, especially Enjolras, and how he can manipulate anyone in the the most gentle, oddly motherly way. He can get a person to do whatever he wants by making them think it's their idea. It's utterly masterful.

'What are you making?'

Grantaire yelps. Enjolras has entered silently into the kitchen, looking much fresher and a little healthier than before. He smells of spiced apple, Marius's favourite shower gel. A whiff of banana. Courfeyrac's shampoo and conditioner. Grantaire likes that stuff too, it's good for curly hair.

'I'm making...' he begins, twisting a few dials on the cooker, setting some utensils down. 'I dunno. I'm just using some leftovers. I'm gonna go proper food shopping tomorrow, because there's not much in.'

Grantaire is only half-lying. He has a decent amount of food, but he wants to get food he knows Enjolras will eat because he isn't sure his usual fare, pasta-with-something or whatever-on-toast, would pass standards. Or convince his house guest to actually want to eat. He imagines that Enjolras is a pet he has agreed to take care of for Combeferre and Joly, and he imagines their wrath should he let him die of starvation. Right now he is making a finer effort than he might just for himself, pan-frying thick bacon and chunks of polenta to have with mozzarella and salad, a handful of baby plum tomatoes. Maybe some red onion. He's relaying this as he thinks it. Enjolras watches and listens with a peculiar expression.

'You like cooking,' he says flatly. 'I don't. To be honest.'

Grantaire chuckles, a soft smoky sound. He doesn't usually laugh like that in front of Enjolras. 'I do like cooking, and I don't think I'm that bad at it.' He plucks some mozzarella from the side where he's torn it up for the salad, savours it. 'You're not a good cook, then?'

'I can cook,' Enjolras says quickly, almost defensively. 'I just don't enjoy it. I think it's stressful.'

Another rumble from Grantaire. 'I think it's relaxing. I love cooking.'

'Well of course you do, you're an artist.' His tone is absent. 'You like making things.'

Astonished once more by Enjolras, Grantaire busies himself with cleaning the salad leaves, trying not to look too bemused. So perceptive, Enjolras the bowman who always hits the target. Apparently there's not much he misses, even with the things he doesn't care much about.

They've eaten and have finished a few cups of tea by the time the regular hour for dinner ticks by. Enjolras admits he is hungry again, he admits that he didn't eat anything at all yesterday.

'Why not?' Grantaire keeps the questions simple, Enjolras goes to the edge of the razorblade again.

'I just forgot.'

'I didn't think you were the forgetful type.' He meant it playfully, but Grantaire's comment makes Enjolras sullen. He's coiled into the sofa he'd earlier favoured, staring hard at the television screen as if willing it to crack. Grantaire is quiet for a while, wondering what the next move should be. He recalls again what Combeferre had said, about getting on with whatever he would normally do and simply letting Enjolras fall in to it. He thinks what he would do if he was alone for the evening, but can't think of anything he could do that Enjolras could find familiarity and routine in. Suddenly, an idea.

'We're going to the supermarket. Right now'


	2. The Bedtime Ritual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There was a deep coldness there somewhere, reminding Enjolras of choppy, temperamental sea waters, unforgiving and grey, perhaps promising to keep you afloat if you fall in, perhaps threatening to swallow you down."
> 
> Small apologies lead to a doorway of possibilities that neither Enjolras or Grantaire ever imagined could exist.

Grantaire imagines that a crèche of three-year-old children would have been easier to manage during a supermarket trip. He imagines numberless scenarios full of silly improbabilities, mushing on roller-blades, being blindfolded, being only two feet tall! But none of these idiotic fantasies, not even in his wildly creative mind, lead him to any of the same brick walls he has just encountered. Enjolras is a dreadful shop-mate.

'Which milk do you normally get?'

'I don't know.'

'What do you mean you don't know?'

'I don't do the food shopping.'

Grantaire had chosen the one he normally buys, only to be argued with about the colour of the lid.

'They have different colours for the different types of milk. The blue one is full-fat, the green one-'

'I want the red one.'

'That's fully skimmed. It's basically white water.'

He left the one he'd chosen first in the basket and they'd moved on. There was little input or resistance as Grantaire rifled through the aisles of fresh vegetables and later the selections of cooking oils, but the endless racks of bread presented a many-headed opponent.

'I don't like brown bread.'

'What the _fuck,_ Enjolras.'

They argued over farmhouse batches, multi-seeded rolls, granary loaves, rye bread, soda bread, even scotch pancakes. Eventually Grantaire told Enjolras to pick the one Combeferre normally buys, but Enjolras didn't know, so they agreed on a plain white loaf. The same rigmarole occurred when they'd chosen meats and cheeses and cereal. By the end, after Grantaire had paid, insisting that Enjolras contribute a handful of cash, all nerves were at the very ends of their tethers. They walked in silence the short way back to Grantaire's house, where Enjolras watched as the food was all put away.

'That was a fucking nightmare, Enjolras.' Grantaire is smiling though, giving in to the amusement of hindsight. Enjolras becomes moody at this, and goes to the sofa with a deliberately loud huff. 'What?' Grantaire follows him. 'It's kind of funny thinking about it now.'

'I hate food shopping.'

'That's quite apparent.' Grantaire smiles wickedly. 'You don't seem to like anything you're not very good at.'

Enjolras firmly clenches his jaw for the rest of the evening until night fully descended, which at the height of summer didn't happen until almost ten o' clock, and it was not long after this that Grantaire ordered Enjolras up to organise the arrangement of his bed place on the sofa. He brings down a large blanket that he drapes over the entire sofa in an imitation of an undersheet and arranges the cushions at one end so Enjolras can stack his two pillows and set down his folded duvet until he's ready to actually climb in and go to sleep.

'Right,' says Grantaire. 'I hope this will do. I'm going to start getting ready for bed now, you can do what you want. Get changed in the bathroom if you feel like you're ready for pajamas.'

* * *

 

Enjolras spends a little time feeling quite misplaced as Grantaire goes about his long-winded evening ritual. He heads up to his room and apparently needs to listen to half an album whilst he gets changed, but he realises that wine was being consumed when Grantaire returns to the living room in slouchy black pajama bottoms and a muscle-tee with a bottle of wine in one hand. In the other hand there is a large wine glass full, and two of the fingers of this hand hold a lit cigarette. Enjolras has seen the way Grantaire drinks at the student bar and at some of his meetings. It was always a vulgar affair, beer and wine alike being necked straight from the bottle, with shots of clear liquids serving as mere commas in the outrageously long paragraphs of Grantaire's drinking endurance.

Now he sits with his knees up on his sofa, sipping leisurely from the wine glass as he clicks senselessly through television channels. He sets the glass down on the lamp table beside him as he hand-rolls a cigarette, which he saves to smoke during advert breaks, or when the telly just doesn't hold his attention. He was a completely different creature to the one Enjolras had always seen and hated, the one he'd first met when they'd all moved into the fresher year accommodations. Enjolras thinks of that night, Grantaire's cocky laughter and jokes, easily blending in with everyone he met as he descended the stairs. They'd later fought with each other, and Grantaire had given him a scar on his cheek where he sadistically stubbed out his cigarette. He absent-mindedly rubs the blemish on his face, bites his tongue before he asks slowly,

'Grantaire, do you remember that time at Jehan and Feuilly's house?'

Grantaire finishes a glass of wine that he's been nursing for a whole episode of something, and as he pours another, he says, 'I remember lots of times. I go there quite frequently.'

'I mean when we were both there, when you broke the bowls.'

Enjolras looks hard at Grantaire, who purses his lips and carefully lights one of his previously hand-rolled cigarettes. He won't look Enjolras in the eye as he speaks. 'We never really talked about what happened there, did we.'

'I suppose not. But I don't really want to talk about that.' Enjolras fiddles with the corner of one of his pillows. 'I just remember I wanted to know why you did what you did when we met. And you know, you kind of went apeshit, so there was never an answer.'

'I was telling the truth when you asked me the first time,' Grantaire shoots, a little of his familiar venom that he used exclusively when they had always been at each others necks. 'It _will_ sound stupid. And it _was_ a long time ago.'

They are both silent for a few beats, the incessant droning of the television filling the void. Grantaire's lighter _snicks_ as he reignites his cigarette.

'I still want to know-'

_'Fine.'_

Grantaire throws his lighter down on the sofa and gets up to stomp into the kitchen. Enjolras is appalled, and in a temper he decides to get into his pajamas and under the duvet and angrily turn his back to the room so he can show Grantaire that he's blatantly ignoring him. Enjolras is in his pajama bottoms, no t-shirt though, and beginning to climb under his cover when Grantaire returns. He's got a class of water and some breadsticks which he settles with on the sofa before he turns fully to look at Enjolras and takes a deep breath before he launches into a breathless explanation.

'I'm telling you this is gonna sound dumb, because I think it really is dumb, but that's just the way it happened. I fucking. Hate. Crowds. I mean seriously packed-in, can't-stick-your-elbows-out kind of crowds. I just don't like it, it makes me panic. And when we bumped into each other in the bar I was just about to have some kind of panic attack or something and I just didn't react very well to the way you spoke and looked at me.'

Enjolras gaped a little. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean you just looked at me like I'd rubbed shit on my face. You made me feel _this_ fucking small-' he brandishes the last two inches of uneaten breadstick at Enjolras. '- and it hurt. I did not react well, I admit it, and growing up with five sisters you can believe me when I say I have thick skin, but you were just... I don't know. Needlessly blunt.'

'But I apologised! I came and found you and forced my way into that circle of people just so I could say sorry!'

Grantaire sags on the sofa, gnawing on a new breadstick. He looks quite crestfallen. 'I told you it was dumb,' he mumbles. 'And I feel shitty about it.'

'You stubbed a cigarette out on my _face.'_

'I know!' Grantaire's voice rose enough to drown out the television for a fleeting moment. 'I know and it was fucking stupid! I can't take it back Enjolras, it happened and it can't unhappen! I'm sorry, I gave in to the worst part of myself and did something awful. But I cannot change that.'

Enjolras glares hard at Grantaire, who is clearly in turmoil, thinking about that night. He doesn't like to take heed of the times when Combeferre tells him he's being unnecessarily impolite to people, sometimes even aggressive, but he tries to recall everything he can about what happened. He remembers Grantaire's white, wild face in the crowd, the way he'd seemed stuck in place until Courfeyrac, back then a complete stranger to Enjolras, had ushered him outside once they'd received their drinks at the bar. He remembers searching the sea of new people for the black curly hair, sensing he might have been a bit offensive, not really sure because he couldn't remember saying anything too nasty, but the look on that face had been unsettlingly wounded. And there he was, the confident joker, amiable and approachable at the very first glance, if a little irritatingly cocksure. He was clearly on a friend-making mission, but there was a deep coldness there somewhere, reminding Enjolras of choppy, temperamental sea waters, unforgiving and grey, perhaps promising to keep you afloat if you fall in, perhaps threatening to swallow you down.

They were all smoking in the close-knit circle, but Enjolras went over anyway, followed by Combeferre who was living on the same floor as some of these people. And all of them, Enjolras saw, were the people who lived in the same building as him. They might be seeing a lot of each other. Grantaire was right in the middle, easily fitting in, and Enjolras managed to fit in too. He perceived that he and Grantaire would turn out to be quite different from each other, but everyone seemed to react to them both the same way, hospitable, fervent, even yielding. Enjolras liked people with strong personalities, he thought they were grounded and usually saw things in a similarly passionate way.

Grantaire turned out to be a complete shock of ice water in the face. But Enjolras remembers, no matter how furious it makes him to think of what Grantaire did that night, that it was he who threw the first punch, was the one who succumbed to irrepressible violence. Perhaps Grantaire wouldn't have given such a scar if the fight had never happened at all, if Enjolras had just walked away when Grantaire insolently blew cigarette smoke in his face. He bites the insides of his cheeks.

'I'm sorry, too,' he seethes, angry with himself, angry with that particular person Grantaire had chosen to be that night, angry with the whole thing. 'You were dick, but I punched you first.'

There is an age-long pause.

'We're both dicks then.'

Enjolras snaps his head up and stares, ready to tell Grantaire to be serious, but he's just chuckling to himself, that soft smoky sound, again so far removed from the various beasts he'd presented himself as during their lengthy hatred of each other. He wonders which beast Grantaire really is, and why he wears so many different personalities. Which one of these people-suits will start to come undone at the seams, he wonders. Or rather, what is it that can unpick the stitches of people-suits?

'Well, that's me all wound down for bed.' Grantaire drags himself up from the sofa and clicks his back, collects his glasses and washes them in the kitchen. He gives Enjolras the controller for the television when he comes back through, staring at him strangely as he speaks.

'You seem like a bit of an after-midnight waif, so if you want to carry on watching the telly that's fine. Don't worry about it being too loud, I always go to sleep with my own telly or my laptop on in the background. Help yourself to drinks or whatever.' Enjolras realises that Grantaire is staring opening at his naked torso, and he suddenly feels cold. 'See you in the morning. I have work at nine, so sorry if that's too early to accidentally wake you up or whatever...' His words diminish into a wide yawn. He shuffles up the stairs. He is gone for the night.

Staring down at his chest, Enjolras scowls, thinking maybe there's something stuck to him. He sees nothing. What's there to look at? He thinks of all the times he's walked through his own house with no t-shirt on, when it's hot or after a shower, the times he's bumped into a topless Combeferre or Joly. They all look different from each other. Combeferre was bulky in a healthy way, blessed with height and natural tone. Girls liked his mass. Joly was pallid and slender and somewhat hairless of body, and seemed to attract a rather particular type of girl, overbearing and coy all in one. Enjolras thought of himself, similar in a way to Combeferre, very tall, lending himself to a healthy bulkiness also, but decorated in swathes of dark blonde fur. A great thatch across his chest, an extensive trail from between his legs up to his belly button. He frowned. That's fine, he thinks. He rubs his arms which are also very hairy.

He's never seen Grantaire with no top on, but his muscle shirt was a scant coverage, and he'd seen little hair. He doesn't have such furry arms as Enjolras, and probably doesn't have an enormous belly trail either. Enjolras sinks into his duvet, burrowing the back of his head into the pillow as he covers himself completely. Maybe Grantaire had never seen a body like his before. Enjolras leaves the television on, plucking lightly at his chest hair, feeling paranoid in a way he hadn't felt since he was a teenage boy.

* * *

 

Grantaire doesn't get into bed as soon as he goes upstairs. He's on his laptop, logged in, looking for the right green light.

> _**Grantaire:** sup ferre_
> 
> _Sent 11:02pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** Hey R_
> 
> _Sent 11:07pm_
> 
> _How's the Enj-sitting going? :)_
> 
> _Sent 11:08pm_
> 
> _**Grantaire:** omg. we went food shopping. worst decision of my life._
> 
> _Sent 11:10pm_
> 
> _how do you even cope man_
> 
> _Sent 11:10pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** Haha yeah that's a tricky one. He just really hates being bored._
> 
> _Sent 11:13pm_
> 
> _How's things aside? No arguments or anything?_
> 
> _Sent 11:14pm_

Grantaire bites his lip. Combeferre already knows the answer. He knows that it would have been impossible for something not to have happened.

> _**Grantaire:** well we didn't argue_
> 
> _Sent 11:22pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** That's good. So what did happen?_
> 
> _Sent 11:23pm_
> 
> _**Grantaire:** we just talked about when we met. like what that fight was all about. we said sorry to each other._
> 
> _Sent 11: 28pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** To each other?_
> 
> _Sent 11:31pm_

That is the one thing that sometimes annoys Grantaire. Combeferre, though not at all oblivious to the various faults in Enjolras, will readily assume that the obnoxiousness and hostility in his friend is always the reactive element, rather than the provocative one.

> _**Grantaire:** yeah. I said sorry that I reacted badly to what he said to me in the bar. Then he said sorry for throwing the first punch._
> 
> _Sent 11:37pm_
> 
> _**Combeferre:** What did he say in the bar?_
> 
> _Sent 11:39pm_
> 
> _**Grantaire:** it doesn't matter. Anyway I've got to go to sleep ferre, I have a morning shift tomorrow. Chat laters x_
> 
> _Sent 11:40pm_

He signs off before Combeferre can reply, mildly rude chat etiquette, but he feels a niggling agitation. They were both as much to blame, Grantaire thinks, he and Enjolras. Neither of them had made even the slightest mocking of an effort to quell what had begun that very first night. They had risen violently to each other time and time again during the last two years, most of the time warring back and forth with words, but at least twice more they engaged hand-to-hand, and several more times they'd launched objects at each other across meeting rooms and nightclubs. Peculiarly, this one reality they'd only ever known with each other took very little to dismantle, as if it had only been a thin stretch of paper covering a doorway they hadn't known was there. All it took was a weak, soul-naked moment in Grantaire (and a lot of broken crockery) and they'd both realised the flimsiness of what they'd spent unutterable amounts of energy maintaining.

Grantaire bites his thumb nail as he sinks into his pillow and tries to let sleep in, but he frets at the thought of the week ahead. They'd both torn down the thin paper veil and seen a dark doorway to something new, but only now had either of them dared to peer in and wonder what new places could be there.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spontaneously switched to an Enjolras-filter for this rather short chapter. I wasn't sure if carrying out 100% of the narrative through Grantaire would get a little tiresome for the reader...? I quite liked it and it's opened up a possibility of exploring parts of the story that might have got me a little stuck later on. It is, after all, a story about how two people react to each other and feel about it each other, not just a tired, overdone story about how Grantaire copes with Enjolras. I'm enjoying this exploration anyway, I hope some of you are, too.
> 
> Also, in regards to the body hair of Enjolras, I take this directly from Aaron Tveit. That guy is SUPER furry, it makes me laugh to think how his torso gets shaved for Graceland and some of his topless stage performances. Anyway, I wanted a small example of how Enjolras might feel about himself physically, show some hang-ups, see how he deals with it.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how many chapters this will be, I thought maybe seven. A chapter for each day of the week, but I thought it best not to commit because I'm an awful person when it comes to finishing things. The ratings will likely change with future chapters.


End file.
